One For Sorrow
by Aniaj
Summary: What happened to the six children who didn't escape through the tunnels? In the aftermath of Alkali Lake, Jubilee struggles to adjust to daily life at Xavier's School.
1. Prologue

Yadda, yadda, yadda, not mine, yadda, yadda, yadda. Reviews would be nice. Archive it, if you want, but tell me where. 

_Yes, there's more, and I am not vain enough to demand reviews first, but be patient with me and my lack of consistent internet access._

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One For Sorrow 

_One for sorrow,  
two for joy,  
three for a girl,  
four for a bo,y  
five for silve,r  
six for gold,  
seven for a secret,  
never to be told_  
-nursery rhyme  
  


Jubilation Lee was a Survivor. It was not so much a trait instilled in her as a state of being, a title truly earned by few and recognized even less often. To those select few, it was as integral as the Doctor, Judge, King, or Esquire on a business card. She had come into it much sooner than most people did, earning the unspoken right only ten years into her life. It had been brutally thrust upon her the day she had come home to see her parents lying in a pool of their own blood, their entrails adorning them in a macabre bow topping a special gift.  
  
In the years that followed, as she travelled through the usual route of foster homes (her parents had been only children with parents long since dead), she had begun to discover what it meant to belong to that elite club. Once she had exhausted the foster homes, ("Unsuitable for adoption due to behavioral issues", the report had declared.) the next stop was a series of group homes, each one worse than the previous. She was shuffled into and out of them quickly. Those, too, furthur refined her title.   
  
It was after she had run away from the last of those so-called "homes" that she fully claimed her title. That she adapted quickly and even thrived in her new life on the streets should come as no suprise. Very soon after, she had a nice, comfy set-up in the mall. Granted, that came with its own difficulties, but the occasional pursuit from security personel was merely an annoyance to someone with abilities as finely honed as hers. Life had been, if not good, at least tolerable right up to the day she had been convinced, in the form of Charles Xavier himself, to come to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters.  
  
You might say Jubilee had been doubly blessed, for she also carried the dubious honor of being a mutant. That had been bestowed on her days after her thirteenth birthday, when her latest (and last) foster-father had tried to do more than cop his usual feel. The streams of brightly-colored lights that erupted from her fingertips had the double effect of sending him screaming and sending her, burned hands already blistering, to the first of many institutions. She had since gained some measure of control over her powers, although they erupted easily if she was particularily angry or afraid. The pain had faded, too, with time.   
  
Life at Xavier's was different. There were rules about everything, procedures, homework. She liked the classes, though her schoolwork was never more than adequate. It wasn't that the work was too demanding for her, she just had a hard time taking the American Revolution that seriously when she had learned life's real lessons already. When one was in a life-or-death situation, one had better know something more than the square root of 144.   
  
Her new existence at Xavier's had its own price. Jubilee the loud-mouthed SoCal mallrat had been born out of necessity. She had instinctively known that showing the Jubilation forged from her parents' murder and the life that followed would not be allowed to exist in that place of laughing children and morality. So she had altered her personality, knowing that ebullient vivacity would raise far fewer second glances than her quieter, deadlier self. It wasn't a hard change for her; she had laughed and smiled before, just not as often. She had learned to shield the things she was far too young to know, to dampen the cynicism that came her from her past. At Xavier's she quickly came to be known as "witty". The change didn't hurt her too much, except sometimes when she woke up in the middle of the night and wondered what the catch was.  
  
Her transformation went unnoticed by the adults. Even Xavier himself was convinced, and the fact that she had the "shields of a telepath" didn't hurt. But then, none of them had ever truly known the real Jubilation to begin with. Her teachers shook their heads in amused exasperation when she provided some trite excuse for missing homework. She had only to pop her gum loudly when somebody got too close to the truth. Play up the SoCal accent, throw in a few "likes", call it a day.  
  
And yet for all her effort, a reflection of a shadow of her former self still peeked through. It was flashing in her eyes that first day when some other kids decided she needed an "initiation". It was the steel in her voice the time Bobby Drake had frozen her feet to the floor. And it was the bruises on John's face, the black eyes and split lip that were the result of her finding him on the far edge of the grounds hanging a feral cat from a stick and dipping it in and out of the lake. It was the set of her chin as they both stood in front of Mr. Summer's desk, her silence as stark a contrast to John's angry accusations as the blackening ring around his eye to his pale face.  
  
It was then that she solidified her reputation at the School. Mr. Summers, for all his love of the rules and stern dissapproval, could only ground her for a week. She hadn't, after all, broken the School's cardinal rule and used her powers on one of her fellow students. And allthough he got out of it with no punishment at all, John was far from smirking. After all, he had been beaten by a girl. Thus Jubilee hid by standing out, concealed by intentionally drawing attention to herself. It was a technique only a Survivor could have mastered.  
  
In the end, though, not even that really mattered. Life wasn't quite through with Jubilation Lee.  
  
It was how she came to be huddled shivering in a stark concrete pit. Because she had forgotten the most basic tenent of a survivor - selfishness. Because, in the end, if the only person you could be counting on was yourself, then your first priority had to be you. It was a harsh reminder. She knew that, welcomed it, embraced the truth even as she cursed it.  
  
It was luck, the capricious Survivor's god, that then stepped in. Luck that sent her running up a snow-covered slope barefoot through the snow. _Here_, Luck said, _I'm feeling generous today. You will Survive this, too._  
  
She didn't want to. Resentment twinged inside her. Huddled in a seat on the Blackbird under an agonizingly soft blanket, she could only rail silently at the gift while around her another drama was playing out. She noted distantly when Miss Grey diverted the water from the plane. She heard Mr. Summer's agonizing plea, saw the way the Professor's eyes glazed over as he became a human speakerphone. Her mind registered the events unfolding even as her soul retreated farther away. It was how she could feign sleep on the trip back, not that anyone noticed her in the wake of Jean Grey's death.  
  
It was how she could smile at the Professor the next day and nod in all the right places when he paused for breath, as if T.H. White were the answer for anything and everything.

As if there were any answers at all. 


	2. Night

There is an old adage that says that bad things always happen at night. There was some truth in it, for any psychologist could tell you that there was something about darnkess that brought out the worst in people. Some truth, though. Jubilation Lee had always taken that particualr bit of folklore with a large grain of salt. Bad things happened all the time, whether in the light of the full moon or the bright, merciless noonday sun.  
  
For example, it had been a bright October afternoon when she had returned from school to see her parents lying in their own blood, staining the thick carpeting of their Beverly Hills condo. It was the end of what the weather man had called an Indian summer, and the sun had been hot enough to draw tiny beads of sweat on the social worker's forehead and send it dripping down both chins to stain his shirt. She had watched in fasicnation as the fabric darkened with each drop.  
  
This time, though, it was early in the morning when something had awakened her. She lay still and let her senses extend fully, her mind racing, though if anyone had seen her she would have looked asleep. It was a strange habit, but she had learned it and it had saved her life more than once. Her ears told the most. The barely perceptible hum of the security grid was gone, replaced metal-toed footsteps and the sound of something sliding along a rope.  
  
In one swift movement she was out of bed and across the room, holding her breath as she listened for any sounds from the hallway. Between heartbeats she had opened the door and slipped out, her bare feet silent on the smooth hardwood floors. Her journey along the hallway was that of prey, cautiously swift, utterly soundless. She stayed as much as possible in the shadows of the walls, taking refuge in the alcoves housing semi-precious art and sculpture on pedastools. Semi-precious since the time Boddy Drake had covered the entire second floor with a sheet of ice as a prank and Peter Rasputin had slid the length of the building like a big wrecking ball.  
  
She had reached the first of the concealed doors that accessed the tunnels when Tracy Cassidy's scream shattered the silence. Because this was Tracy Cassidy, nickname Siryn, her scream also rattled every pane of glass framing the paintings hung in the hallway. Fighting the urge to cover her ears, Jubilee had the door open and was two steps inside when Tracy stopped screaming, probably because she had run out of breath. Into that sudden vaccuum of sound chaos let loose a polyphany of noise. The other kids took up where Tracy left off, screaming and shouting and running everywhere. In counterpoint to that was the tympanic drumbeat of stun grenades and the rat-tat-tat of machine guns from the ground floor.  
  
Jubilee was reaching for the door to pull shut behind her when she saw Kitty Pryde run through up the hallway. Literally run through, blonde ponytail streaming. In her wake came more screaming and shouting as the invaders lost what remained of the element of surprise. Jubilee looked over her shoulder down the tunnel as she shut the door closed behind her, allowing herself one heavy sigh.  
  
She had gotten around the corner of the hall when she got her first look at the invaders. Black from head to toe, with his face blackened by camo paint and wool hat over his night-vision goggles, everything about him screaming _military_ from his fatigues to the matte-black Heckler & Koch MP5 strapped to his side. She was on him before he could level the dart gun he carried at her. With the agility of a panther she kicked the gun aside.  
  
He was momentarily stunned into paralysis. Their briefing had focused on the known adults expected to be here, and while they had been warned about the children, he hadn't really expected to encounter any serious resistance from any of them. Little, kids, he reasoned, were going to be terrified and cry, even little mutant kids. That this small, Asian girl was not the least bit intimidated by him came as a complete surprise. Before he could recover from his shock, she had planted one tiny, dainty foot on his solarplexus hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. Gasping, stumbling back, he never saw the stone statue she held come crashing down on his head. As the ground rose up to meet him, the last glance he had of her was the eyes, startlingly blue, gazing at him, the windows to a much older soul than the body declared.  
  
Dropping the statue as she crept foward, Jubilee crept foward as she came closer to the stairwell. A crash from above signified the destruction of the bay window and skylights on the third floor. Another crash, this one harder to identify. It was like the Easter egg hunts she had gone to as a child, she thought. Every time she rounded a corner, she found a kid. Sometimes they were crouched in alcoves. A couple were under beds or dressers. She even found the Doyle twins hiding in a bath tub. She had no basket to put them in, but they followed her all the same. Sounds of pursuit told her that her original escape route was now inaccesible. Up the stairs they went.  
  
"Jubilee!" The shout came from her left. She turned to see Peter Rasputin with his own frightened gaggle, Siryn unconscious in his arms. His skin gleamed in the strobing lights of the helicopters circling.  
  
"That way's no good," she shouted in return, the words punctuated by gunfire from below. "Try the next wing over." She pushed the least terrified looking of her charges towards him. "Go." He nodded once and ran out, ushering the wailing brats before him. From the opposite end of the hall came a grenade blast and broken glasss richoched off the doorway. Shoving the slower children along, she retreated even as laser targets flashed on the walls outside the doorway. "Run, morons!" The remaining kids looked at her and cowered even as they pumped their legs faster.   
  
Like sharks attacking a school of baitfish, they entered the hall. She heard the blast even as she felt the taser wires hit her back. She almost grinned. The nature of her particular powers had a lot to do with electricity, and if she had the tendency to fry her CD player on a regular basis, it also meant that the taser gun was practically ineffective. The look of surprise on the trooper's face was priceless as she not only didn't fall, but pivoted on one foot, dropped into a crouch and sent a jolt of electricity from her right arm. It travelled through the air, hitting him with all the impact of a semi, hurling him back against the wall so hard he left an indent of his body deep enough to hold him upright.  
  
She heard, too late, the sound of a dart gun coming from the darkness, fired by another trooper under cover. Muscles suddenly soft, joints loose, she crumpled to the floor even as she pulled the dart from her arm and threw it with all her remaining strength at the trooper. As grew roses blosomed on the edges of her vision, she fixed her gaze on the still inert man embedded on the wall. 

Author's note- yeah, I know I took some liberty with her powers, but that's how they were handled in the novelization, so I figured no one would mind. The movies have so many other things switched around, anyways. 


End file.
